Learning (Dis)Abilities

Ink-stained hands crumple up yet another piece of parchment. Remus sighs and pulls out a fresh roll. Hoping third time's a charm with this essay, his eyes trail over to all the other students studying in the library; study groups at tables, their heads deep in various books or loose parchment.

Seeing the other students studying with classmates and friends, Remus feels a twinge of jealousy. He quickly pushes the feeling down. There’s a reason he’s kept to himself during his four years at Hogwarts. Getting close to people means learning each other’s behaviors, patterns, and secrets. As much as Remus would like to be close to his classmates, he’d be risking not only his life at Hogwarts, but his freedom from the ministry's harsh laws, who aren’t yet aware of Remus’s condition. He can’t risk it.

So here sits Remus Lupin, in his fourth year, without a single friend. 

Remus focuses back on his blank parchment and restarts the essay, periodically checking with the various textbooks in front of him.

“Hey, Lupin!” 

Remus jumps, messing up the word he’s writing, and looks up to see Sirius Black sliding into the chair across the table. He resists the urge to wrinkle his nose at the onslaught of cologne that his him. For a regular human, it’s probably barely noticeable, but for Remus, it’s overpowering.

“What?” Remus asks irritated.

“Is that any way to greet your fellow roommate?”

Remus ignores him, inspecting his half-finished essay to see if it needs to be redone again or if the quill mark can be ignored. 

“Remus, I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Nothing’s stopping you. I just don’t have to listen.”

“Oh, come on,” Sirius whines softly, closing one of the open books. “I can’t invite you to come to Hogsmeade with James, Peter, and me if you’re not listening.”

Again, the twinge of jealousy. “I’m good.”

“Then just walk to the village with us.”

“I don’t have my permission slip signed.”

Sirius smirks. “Oh, that’s not a problem. I can get you in.”

Persistent bastard. “We have a history test that next Monday and I’ll need the time to study.”

“Study after. You never hang out with us. We want to get to know you.”

Remus looks up, hiding his bewilderment. Why would they want to get to know him after all these years? “Seriously, I’m busy.”

“It’s Sirius, not seriously.” Sirius laughs softly.

Remus merely looks at his watch and folds up his parchment, cleaning up so he can leave for potions next period.

“Remus?”

“Hm?”

“About Hogsmeade? You down?”

“No.”

“Was it my joke?”

“Is that was that was supposed to be?”

Sirius grabs his chest dramatically. “Wow, you wound me Remus Lupin. Truly.”

Remus purses his lips together. Why can’t he just go away?

“Is it me?” Sirius asks jokingly.

“No.” 

"I make you nervous, don’t I?" Black teases, a smirk on his face. 

"Yes," Remus replies quietly, closing his ink pot and stuffing it into his bag. "You do."

But not for the reasons you think.

The smile leaves Sirius's face. "What, no- I-"

"I have to go to potions," Remus says hurriedly and shoves everything else into his bag. Inwardly, he winces at the disorganization, but he can fix it as soon as he's away from Sirius-fucking-Black. 

"Remus, wait!"

But Remus is already through the library doors. 

–

"Hello, Remus."

Remus, setting up for potions, sighs inwardly. Slughorn had hinted at having a quiz today and Remus had studied for hours for it. 

He doesn't have time for distractions. 

"What do you want, Black?"

"Why would I want something? Why can't I just be sitting here to get to know you more?"

"Doesn't wanting to get to know me more still count as wanting something?" Remus mutters under his breath. He deigns to look at Sirius, to find him fully settled into the seat beside him. "You don't sit there. You sit in the back with James Potter."

"There's no set seating chart, is there?"

Remus hesitates a second, his stomach slowly turning like a spit. "No, I guess not." Remus puts his bag under the desk, ready for class. "As long as you don't talk here like you do with Potter, I don't give a damn where you sit."

"See, that sounds like you do care."

"Piss off."

Black laughs softly and holds his hands up. "Hey, just joking around. I barely know anything about you, even though we've been sharing a dorm for four years now."

"So why start now?" Remus grumbles.

"'Cuse me?"

"So why start now?" Remus looks Sirius right in his eyes. "You all have left me alone for four years, so why bother me now? You have your friendships, I have my thing, let that be all."

"What is your thing? Books?"

"None of your business."

"No, but I'd still like to know. So it's not books?"

"Piss off," Remus repeats and turns his body away from Sirius. 

Remus's heart is racing. He's gone four years at Hogwarts with no one finding out about his werewolf secret. Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, and Professor McGonagall are the only ones on campus who know. Remus has spent four-bloody-years keeping his distance from everyone else so no one could get suspicious and mark his 'illnesses'.

Sirius and his group of friends are the loudest bunch at Hogwarts. If they found out his secret, the whole school would know in a matter of hours. Then Remus would be back on the streets, hiding in the woods, and dead within a year. Probably. 

No matter how much Remus wants to banter back with the dark-haired boy beside him, he can't. No matter how much he desperately -desperately- wants friendship, he knows his secret comes first. 

Thankfully, Slughorn walks into class at that moment and Remus is able to focus his attention on the lecture, quiz, and work assigned instead of his anxious thoughts. School has always been a nice distraction to his mind. 

"Fuck," Sirius mutters and waves away the smoke coming out of his cauldron. Class is halfway over and Slughorn has them practicing a simple healing draught. 

"You're stirring it wrong. Go counterclockwise and keep each circle the same," Remus comments without looking toward the boy.

"Go- what?"

Remus sets his own stirring stick down and grabs Black's, showing exactly what to do. Almost immediately, the smoke lessens and the colour turns from bright orange to a lighter hue. Not quite the golden it's supposed to be. Remus sniffs discreetly, trying to use his extra sensitive nose to find the issue. "You might have put too many billywig stings. The colours not right."

Remus, too busy trying to think of a solution, doesn't notice Sirius staring at him, a soft smile on his lips. "Add more belladonna, that should do it. Sirius?" Remus hands out Sirius's stir stick. 

"Yeah, right. More belladonna." Sirius grabs the stick and gets out the dropper bottle of poison. "Isn't belladonna, like, a bad poison?"

"Yeah."

"So why is it in a healing draught? Kill the patient more?"

Remus sighs. "If you'd read the theory, you'd know." 

Silence. 

"It's the same principle of fighting fire with fire, you know? Making an antidote to a snake bite with the venom of the snake. You add a little poison then neutralize it with other healing ingredients to get a stronger healing potion. Make sense?"

Sirius stares at Remus, but this time with a little bit of awe. "Yeah, it does actually. So because I added too many healing ingredients, I can add more poisons to even it out?"

Remus nods. "See, you're getting it. Potions aren't hard, once you learn the basic theory. We went over that in year one, didn't we?"

Sirius purses his lips. "Probably. To be honest, potions isn't my strong suit. It usually goes over my head. I barely passed the exam last year."

Remus speaks before his mind can stop him. "If you want a tutor, I can help you."

Idiot. Idiot. Remus can't start making friends. Not with fucking Sirius Black. Four long years of keeping away from everyone else in school only to start hanging out with the notoriously boisterous flirt to ever roam Hogwarts’s halls.

Sirius raises an eyebrow, a smile already growing on his face. “Tutor? Can’t wait to spend more time with me already?”

Could someone’s eyes pop out from eye-rolling too hard? “On second thought, forget about it.”

“No, no. Tutoring sounds great. What about-”

“Okay, class!” Slughorn interrupts. "Dispose of your potions correctly. I will see you Monday with a foot-long essay on the history, location, and uses of Powdered Root of Asphodel. Have a good rest of your day!”

Remus vanishes his potion and carefully packs up his potion kit.

“So, studying?” Sirius tries again. 

A gasp sounds from behind them.

“Christ, Peter, I think I just heard the word ‘studying’ come out of Black’s mouth just now!” 

They turn around to meet James Potter and Peter Pettigrew.

“Shut it, Potter. I’ll meet you at dinner.”

“Sirius Black, you-”

Sirius shoves James away, exchanging a look that Remus doesn’t understand. James raises his hands in surrender and walks out of the classroom with Peter, throwing glances over his shoulder and snickering.

Sirius runs a hand through his hair. “Sorry, they’re gits. Well, mostly James. But they’re great once you get to know them.”

Remus hums, not really caring to listen. “Tutoring, Saturday after lunch in the library.”

Sirius gapes slightly. “On a Saturday? That’s a sacred day.”

Remus shoulders his bag and deigns Sirius a glance. “It’s Saturday or nothing at all. I’ll be in there doing the potion paper Slughorn just assigned. Come or don’t, no difference to me.”

And with that, Remus walks out of the classroom alone.

-

“I can’t do this!”

This, being studying, that the great Sirius Black has only been trying to do for the past five minutes.

“It’s not much. Read the chapter and I'll walk you through anything that you don’t understand,” Remus reminds him, not for the first time in the last few minutes.

Sirius bounces his knees and wrings his hands. “Read the chapter. Yeah, okay.”

Remus goes back to gathering notes over the Powdered Root of Asphodel, three different books open in front of him.

Less than a minute later, Sirius says, “What if you could charm a cauldron to make your potions for you? No potion lessons needed.”

Remus purses his lips, his temper already thin from being woken up before dawn from James I-need-to-practice-Quidditch-early-so-I-can-be-captain Potter. “Are we going over charms? Sirius, just read the chapter.”

“Right.”

Remus takes a deep breath. He knows he shouldn’t be snippy, but he didn’t know it would be this hard to keep Sirius studying for any amount of time.

“What if you could just transfigure a potion into a different potion? Then all you needed-”

“Sirius! For fuck’s sake-”

“Be quiet or leave the library, boys,” Madam Pince calls out sternly.

Remus shuts his mouth and exhales deeply through his nose.

Sirius shifts, keeping his eyes down. Remus can’t recall ever seeing Sirius looking so unsure. “I’ve never been able to sit here and just study or read or compile notes. I’m better at prank planning or rule-breaking or anything else that’s not sitting still with a book.”

Remus looks at Sirius, really looks. All the movement and distractedness. They're sitting in a quiet library, with no stimulus around and an adult supervising everyone. While that environment might be ideal for Remus, Sirius might need something else to help him focus.

“Pack up your bag, we’re leaving.”

Sirius shakes his head. “No, no, don’t give up on me. I-I’ll try again.”

A pang goes through Remus’s chest. What happened in Black’s life to make him fear – because that is fear shining in his eyes – being given up on? Abandonment. Remus can relate to that fear. 

Remus deliberately softens his voice when he continues, “No one’s giving up on you. This obviously isn’t working, but there are other ways to study.” Remus lifts his lips up in a slight smile. “So pack your shit, and let’s go try option two. Okay?”

-

“I don’t understand?”

“What do you do to relax?”

Remus and Sirius sit together in their almost empty common room, their books unopened on the study table, the fire crackling in the hearth. Sirius’s muggle record player also sits on the table beside them.

“Um, I like to listen to the Beatles. Sometimes Marvin Gaye.”

“Ah, yes, the bloody record player that keeps me awake in the dorm,” Remus notes sarcastically. He gestures to the muggle device. “Put on your favorite record.”

“What does this have to do with potions?”

Remus swears his eyes will get injured from rolling them. “Just do it, Black.”

Sirius shuffles through his record collection before settling on David Bowie’s Hunky Dory and setting it on the turntable. 

“Good, okay. Now, read the chapter, and then we can talk about anything that’s confusing, okay?”

“Okay, but how will having music playing help me?”

“Why don’t you trust me first?” Trust a secret werewolf who lives in the same dorm as you. Perfect. 

Sirius doesn’t argue again and opens up his potions textbook, but he doesn’t seem to fully believe this will work.

The difference, however, is immediate and would have been startling if Remus hadn’t been prepared. Instead of bouncing feet, distracted eyes, and random bursts of talking, Sirius keeps on with the task he has. His pointer finger taps quietly along with the beat, sometimes humming along subconsciously, but he is wholly focused on his book. 

While Sirius reads, Remus watches him. He isn’t bad looking, when he actually manages to shut his mouth. He has an air of sophistication around him somehow. It must come from living in a proud pureblood house, no matter how far Sirius tries to remove himself from his family. A long strand of black hair dangles in his face, brushing his eyelashes. Remus has a weird instinct to pull it back into the bun with the rest of his hair. 

Stop it. Don’t start getting close to people now. Only three more years left at school, don’t get attached.

The first two songs on the album, Changes and Oh! You Pretty Things, play and end before Sirius looks up from the textbook. 

“Okay, I finished the chapter,” Sirius announces, a proud gleam in his eyes.

Remus nods. “Okay, now let’s start.”

Once Remus had found the right study method for Sirius, everything was smooth. He is quite intelligent, just needs the right encouragement and atmosphere. 

They studied potions, charms, defense, and history, swapping between subjects from day to day. Sirius’s marks in transfiguration were good enough already, though Remus plans to incorporate McGonnagall’s assigned work into the mix eventually.

With Remus’s help, Sirius's marks improved quickly. If he’s being honest, with the music going, he’s not doing much tutoring as much as simply being a presence and answering the occasional question.

All he needed, Remus thinks one night, putting away his notes from their latest history study session more than a week after their first session, was someone to believe in him.